Monday, September 9, 2013

TV Managers Meet For Resume Lunch; TRN On Life Support; The Ronn And Gavin Kibbitzing Session on KGO; KPIX Misery Tour; Savage On Verge of Taking Hannity Time Slot

A few local media powwows met for lunch at Kokkari on Friday updating their resume. They were not on-air people. They were managers at a TV station. They are, from this angle, still in the clear but I guess they want to be prepared just in case. In the TV News biz, that's a necessary constant.*Mark Masters, the head of Talk Radio Network, which is essentially on life support, can spin all he wants about a company "restructuring." The Oregon-based talk syndicate is dead in the water. It hasn't paid a number of its employees and two key local broadcasters, (they didn't want to be identified), are moving on.

*The good old network: Ronn Owens and Lieutenant Guv Gavin Newsom had a kibbitz session on KGO Monday Morning. If it weren't the radio, you'd have thunk you were a fly on the wall at the Balboa. This can work well. Well, that is if the host were to ask a few hard questions every now and then as opposed to the hour-long giggle fest. Had Willie Brown been there it would have become a full-blown broadcast orgasm.

*Bridge over Troubled Waters meets designated nameeee: Willie Brown. Great idea. So ridiculous even the Chronicle editorialized against it. (The Chron's way of saying there is no conflict of interest.) Sure.

*The main honcho at KQED Radio was none too pleased about the August ratings which is strange since the Arbitrons are not the guide advertisers use as their ad buy reference. Think of it as the little big boy who wants to play ball but didn't hit a home run in his last at-bat.

*Sometime soon, Michael Savage will take over for Sean Hannity here, on KSFO, (and nationally), from Noon-3PM. Hannity officially left Cumulus Media last week.

*There's in-house fighting in almost all TV newsrooms around the country; it's not unique. That said, the in-house angst at KPIX borders on the absurd. Open hostility. Mass favoritism. And a News Director that has a habit of telling people, imploring really, not to dare talk to me. Maybe he needs a drink.

*A Travel Radio guy I'd pay to listen to: CBS' Peter Greenberg. The man has a way with words.

Frosty predicts George Zimmerman will be DEAD by 2015, on his Monday sept. 9 2013 radio show. It depressed me to hear him say that, so I turned to another station. Frosty was prompted by today's news that Zim has gotten himself arrested for domestic violence .i.e. "threatening his soon to be ex-father in law". Not appropriate or pleasant Frosty.

Didn't hear that, listen very little to Frosty, he is pretty much milk toast, although he seem nice enough, but does not set the radio waves on fire, and so without callers, it is a pretty bland 3 hours, followed by Gil's what has come to be 4 ,for the most part, annoying hours. Way to go KKSF, and you thought that when KGO let most their good hosts go, you would add some of them to your line up and improve ratings. Too bad you picked the wrong hosts.

When Savage's show switches to the noon-3pm slot I'll have a difficult choice choosing between Lieberman Live and The Savage Nation. Any indication on whether or not his third hour will continue to be taped?

how the hell are they going to tape a THIRD hour when that hour is primetime New York? they're not switching because they care about the Bay Area.

this savage for hannity thing is a dream. only cumulus would be stupid enough to do it. savage advertisers in drive-time nyc? love to see it. he's a night guy. if they make this switch, the only good thing is it will be the end of savage. then savage will get run off, or quit, and later claim, "i would have been number one..."

If Savage wants the Hannity spot then Cumulus should make him sign an agreement stating that he will do three hours live. This third hour taped business is tacky and unbecoming. Gene Burns had all types of ailments and still managed to do three hours LIVE. Come on Savage, man up. You want to be número 1 right?

As far as KQED ratings dropping, I would have expected as much when they changed "Talk of the Nation", a change no one asked for. Now there are two very generic programs with no callers. No one seems to get that callers are many times more interesting than the host.

Totally agree. 910 has done the same. Replaced Tom Sullivan, who, even though he was nationally syndicated, took callers and added Frosty who has essentially the same program as Gil. I don't listen to either anymore, but the times I did listen to Frosty, his format was the same as Gil's. Covering lots of topics per hour very superficially. Trolling the internet for stories, I guess, is the new thing. Find a couple of sources who know something about the story, ask a few questions and move on to the next subject. 7 hours straight of that is too much for me.

Agree with 8:04 and 6:10, I liked Tom even though his viewpoint is much more conservative than mine, but he took callers, had a good sense of humor and could engage callers, both those he agreed with and those he disagreed with. Absolutely the callers are the most interesting part of the show, especially if the host can present the subject in a way (think Gene Burns, John Rothmann) so the caller is challenged. Frosty's format IS the same as Gil's, except Frosty is maybe a little easier to listen to. Gil's voice grates on my, it sounds put on (lets not even bring his wife into it) too forced, plus all the yep, yep and grunts drives me CRAZY. I don't know who would find this kind of programming interesting, might as well go back and listen to KGO all news, at least their news people sound professional.

I caught about 10 min of owens show with gavin. One thing gavin said and i'm not a fan but agree is about how many of our population can repeat/state football and baseball stats yet not many can state the current, actual unemployment percentage rate or the increase of debt be it daily or annually of our country. just pathetic.

The metrics that radio stations use to evaluate their success is billing and Arbitron ratings, and I'm sure it's as true for KQED as it is for the stations on the commercial band.

BTW, an employee at KCBS expressed to me that they consider KQED to be their main competitor, not that other news station in town with only 3 call letters. Ratings are ratings, and dollars are dollars.

It should be no surprise to anyone that KQED's August ratings dropped. Cancelling "Talk of the Nation" was a major ratings disaster. It sends talk-interested listeners to KGO's Ronn Owens show, or to 960 AM's offering. Especially with what NPR replaced TOTN with, a sort of twin-audio "No-Doze". Two of the worst, merit-less programs ever offered up by NPR.

Weird, as KQED's Forum program addressed this issue before the change-over. Forum asked listeners whether cancelling "Talk of the Nation" was a good idea. And since it was cancelled anyway, what program(s) should replace it. Most listeners said to replace it by some combination of extending Forum, and with re-broadcasts of other NPR-station talk shows, either the "Diane Reim Show", or Tom Ashcroft's "On Point". One point was made very clear: the KQED listeners were adamant that KQED should NOT air NPR's suggested "Talk of the Nation" replacement programs.

hmmm .. not to put too fine a point on it, but if you bother to ask the listeners in the first place, maybe acting on what they say they want would be a good idea if you run a radio station? You think?

KSFO is mostly a joke these days, Huckabee, who listens to him? Savage too much screaming and ranting, calling people vermin, Sussman and Katie, too much forced laughter, I don't like Susmann's humor, Lee Rodgers was funny, even though I didn't agree with him and he was intelligent. Sussman is a total idiot, this morning I listened for about 20-30 minutes, I wanted to hear if he had anything to say about the most recent Zimmerman incident, since he kept calling Trayvon Martin a hoodlum and thug, but being the coward he is not a word. Not sure Zimmerman is racist, but I think he has an anger problem. The most ridicules part of the show was that he manage to tie the fact that some football player was wearing a leg brace, and the owner/mananger wanted him to cover it up, somehow Brian manage to blame Obamacare and Obama. Hello. Also he blamed some stats on alcoholism on Obama. Conservative never fail to surprise me. So if you grew up in the hood, perhaps no parents, or they were on drugs, whatever, if you steal a loaf of bread, speed, drop out of school, the conservative viewpoint (or at least Brian's) you are totally responsible for your actions (which by the way I agree with) but, if you drink too much, whether you are poor, middle class or rich, it is Obama's fault. I would laugh if it wasn't so sad, and how many people believe this crap? God help us. I have a friend who has a drinking problem, and he is Rush and Michael Savage fan, hates Obama, but at least he is realistic enough to realize his drinking problem is his problem, not the president of the United States of America.

Melanie Morgan added a 'little' class to KSFO's Morning Show. But then shallow Sussman and immature Katy Green started ganging-up on Mel in a malicious manner. Wonder what Melanie will do now...since she's the only Swanson family breadwinner and there must be bills to pay.

Barbara Simpson is truly a piece-of-work. She constantly amazes me with her holier-than-thou mean-spirited unkind viciousness, she reinforces how self-centered, misguided, misinformed and nasty these current day Republicans truly are.

Prime-Time-Savage? Never! How could all those Big-Government Hating & Women-Hating Men listen to him while they're at their jobs? No, he's only successful with drive-time or evening lonely old men. If Savage comes on mid-day...mark my words: He will not be tolerated, with complaints coming in from all over the nation. Savage's 'Hellbent-Negativism' is not popular with the average, clear-thinking listener...only those who feed-off such OBNOXIOUS BITTERNESS and HATRED appreciate his overbearing/pernicious style and spirit.